Before you build · 9 min read · Updated August 2026
The five things every visitor looks for before they visit
Someone considering a visit to your church will spend less than a minute on your website before deciding. They are not reading your mission statement. They are looking for five specific things, and most church websites are missing at least two of them. Here is how to check yours.
Step 1. Your service times, on the first screen
Not on an events calendar. Not in a PDF. Not three clicks deep under “Ministries.” The day and the time should be visible without scrolling, on a phone, in text large enough to read at arm’s length.
Write them the way a person says them: Sundays at 10:30am. If you have two services, list both. If you have a summer schedule, say when it changes.
Step 2. Your address, and where to park
A street address, and a link that opens directions. Then the part almost every church forgets: where to park and which door to use. If the main entrance is round the back, or the lot fills up and there is overflow across the street, say so. This is the single most reassuring sentence you can write for a first-time visitor.
Step 3. What actually happens, and how long it lasts
A visitor is deciding whether they will feel out of place. Answer it plainly: how long the service runs, whether people dress up, whether there is music and how loud, whether anyone will be asked to stand or introduce themselves.
Three or four honest sentences beat a page of warm adjectives. “About seventy-five minutes. Most people wear jeans. You will not be singled out” tells someone more than “come as you are” ever does.
Step 4. What happens with children
For families this decides the visit. Say what ages are cared for, where check-in happens, whether children stay in the service, and what your safeguarding process is. If children stay with parents the whole time, say that too — it is useful information, not a shortcoming.
Step 5. A way to reach a human
A name, and an email address or phone number that someone genuinely checks. Not a contact form alone — plenty of people want to know who they are writing to before they write.
If your reply time is a few days, say so. A visitor who knows to expect Wednesday isn’t worried on Tuesday.